Liberian leader ready to talk peace

June 13 2003By Jonathan Paye-LaylehMonrovia

With rebels bearing down on the capital, Liberia's President Charles Taylor told international mediators he was ready to resume talks to end fighting that has left bodies and charred vehicles littering the north-western outskirts of Monrovia.

Insurgents threatening to overwhelm Taylor's last stronghold said on Wednesday that they, too, were willing to stop fighting - but only if Government forces stop attacking them.

"I think it is a good sign that both sides are pulling back and halting hostilities, so that negotiations for a comprehensive peace agreement can be reached," Ghana's Foreign Minister, Nana Akuffo Addo, said after a five-minute meeting with Mr Taylor.

Liberian Defence Minister Daniel Chea later flew back to Ghana with Mr Akuffo Addo and Mohamed Ibn Chambas, executive secretary of the regional bloc mediating the talks. Representatives of the two rebel movements were already in Ghana, Mr Akuffo Addo said.

The rebel offensive is the most intense yet in a three-year campaign to drive out Mr Taylor, who controls little territory outside the capital. ");document.write("

advertisement

");
}
}
// -->

Fighting raged for days on Monrovia's edges but subsided on Tuesday afternoon.

Many international aid workers have left. On Wednesday, 535 foreigners, including US and European nationals and several Australians, arrived in Ivory Coast's southern port of Abidjan - itself struggling to overcome a nine-month civil war - aboard a French military vessel after being whisked out of Monrovia by helicopter.

A spokesman for the UN World Food Program, Ramin Rafirasme, said the humanitarian situation inside Monrovia was now "dramatic" and "highly volatile".

Tens of thousands of people who fled the fighting have taken refuge in Monrovia's schools, churches and sports arena, Mr Rafirasme said.

Liberians fear a bloody battle for the capital, a city of 1 million that was repeatedly overrun during seven years of devastating fighting that ended in 1996.

Mr Taylor emerged the strongest warlord from that conflict and won presidential elections the following year.

Gunfire and explosions shook the outskirts of the city, even after an announcement by one rebel group that they were suspending hostilities to pursue talks with the Government and a newly emerged rebel faction based in Liberia's south-east.